Documentary makers hope to find the 52 Hertz whale - dubbed "the loneliest whale in the world". Picture: Supplied Source: National Features

A TEAM of documentary makers are heading to the North Pacific to try and find a creature dubbed "the world's loneliest whale".

Discovery reports that back in 1989, William Watkins was sifting through some old US Navy whale recordings and discovered something unusual.

While most whales vocalise at between 17 and 18 Hertz, there was one lone whale that was communicating at a much higher frequency - 52 Hz.

Bteween 1992 and 2004 Watkins and his team started to track the 52 Hz recordings to see the migration pattern of the whale.

They then published their findings in the journal Deep Sea Research and it soon took off a life of its own.

People became upset that this whale was crying out at a high frequency but was not hearing anything in response. Hence is was dubbed "the loneliest whale in the world."

Watkins never got to see the paper published so his assistant Mary Ann Daher was left to deal with the barrage of calls from the media and the public.

Scientists have tracked a lone whale with a distinctive 52-hertz frequency call every year over a 12-year spanand over thousands of kilometres

"We don’t know what species it is. We don’t know if it has a malformation. Obviously, it’s healthy. It’s been alive all these years. Is he alone? I don’t know," Ms Daher said. "People like to imagine this creature just out there swimming by his lonesome, just singing away and nobody’s listening. But I can’t say that.”

"To many scientists out there, the story is kind of annoying," he concedes. "It over-anthropomorphizes the whale. "Yet ... whales are incredibly social creatures, so how could it not be lonely?"

While his film is set to focus on the human response to the whale he said he couldn't make the film without trying to find the animal.

"I don’t think you can do this story properly without a good old-fashioned quest," he says. "To not have this exploration and this voyage is really doing a disservice to the story, and to the whale."

Bruce Mate of the Hatfield Marine Science Centre at Oregon State University will lead the scientific team.

"I don’t believe the animal we’re looking for is a new species, or the dying out of an old species, or anything that dramatic," Mr Mate explains. "It is much more likely the animal might be the equivalent of an animal with a lisp, that it has - I won’t call it a speech impediment, because it’s probably understandable to other animals, but it’s different."

Mr Mate doesn't even believe the whale is alone.

"I’m going to guess they’ll be mostly fin whales. My expectation is that we’re going to tag 15 to 20 whales in its vicinity," he said.

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